Puma 1989: the Dassler family sells out, and a 29-year-old saves the cat

Puma was born of a feud: Rudolf Dassler walked out on his brother Adolf in 1948, took half the shoe machines across Herzogenaurach and founded Puma in the shadow of Adidas. It stayed a family firm — Rudolf's sons Armin and Gerd owned and ran it, with sales once guessed near $1 billion and growth of 40 to 50 percent a year in the late 1970s, close behind Adidas. Rivalry governed everything: Puma followed where Adidas led.

The company listed on the stock market in 1986 and promptly ran off the road. By the early 1990s Puma was described as on the brink of bankruptcy — eight years of losses, $250 million of debt, and a warehouse holding 1.5 million pairs of unsold $10 sneakers. In May 1989 the family sold its controlling 72 percent stake to the Swiss Cosa Liebermann group, part of the 'long and messy separations from their family owners' that marked both German shoe dynasties' declines.

The rescuer was Jochen Zeitz, a Colgate marketing alumnus who joined Puma's marketing department in 1988 and became chief executive in March 1993 at 29. He closed the last German factory, nearly halved the workforce to 367, shifted production to contractors in China, Vietnam and Taiwan, and made Puma debt-free from 1994. Puma returned to profit in 1994 — its first since listing — and in 1998 committed to a sport-fashion strategy aimed at snowboarders, racing fans and yoga practitioners.

Profitable from 1994 for ten straight years; by 2007 sales had quintupled to €2.4 billion and PPR bought in at a €5.3 billion valuation.

Listing in 1986 put the family firm under market scrutiny it had never faced; eight loss-making years turned the founders' sons into sellers, not stewards.

Zeitz cut what the family never could — the German factory and a payroll padded with vice-presidents and regional managers.

The fashion pivot picked battles where the Adidas feud did not exist: motorsport, snowboarding, yoga and designer collaborations.

Financial discipline compounded the repositioning, turning a $250 million debt load into a cash surplus within a decade.

Heirs should not have to keep fighting their fathers' war: Puma revived only once the family surrendered control and a professional redefined the brand where the rivalry did not exist.

Puma earned its first post-listing profit in 1994 and made money for ten consecutive years; net profit reached €179.3 million on €1.274 billion of sales in 2003, with a record order backlog up 36 percent. In April 2007 PPR, the French owner of Gucci, bought a 27 percent stake from a Mayfair investment fund at a valuation of €5.3 billion and launched a friendly takeover offer of €330 per share, which Puma welcomed. In September 2009 the two Herzogenaurach rivals formally ended the sixty-year feud their fathers had started.